Baby Luke's birth story (x-posted to CBTB2)

J

jerzy12

New member
Birth Story

tl;dr version: ** Lucas Alexander was born at 7:25 a.m. on March 31st. I caved at 4 cm after 13 hours of back labor and got the epidural. Best decision I ever made, though I really beat myself up about it at the time. Tips are below, **but here's the pictures, because...well, let's face it, that's the most important part, right? :)
  1. After we got moved to Mother-Baby. I swear my husband has never taken so many selfies...I wish he'd uploaded a few of them so I could share them. He's a very happy daddy :)
  2. Saturday morning cat nap.
  3. Easter Sunday in a onesie his Auntie got for him and I was hoping he'd come a little early so he could wear it.
  4. This morning -- Mommy sucks at swaddling and Luke has apparently discovered his fist is delicious
Ok, trying to write it all down now while baby is sleeping. Buckle in everyone. This is going to be looooong.

Sunday (March 29th), I felt great. We went to the park for a leisurely 1 mile (flat and level trail) walk at the park with some friends in the late afternoon and just talked and took pictures while entertaining their 5-month-old. It was gorgeous out and my friend commented that I looked so much more comfortable than she did at almost 39 weeks. I told her I felt great, but maybe it was more because I was in complete denial that I would be going into labor at some point.

We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner after the park and I ate a ton of food (I swear that's the only reason I lasted the next day because I had a 6 oz. steak, salad, potatoes, rolls, and cheese fries and I ate it all. Pretty impressive for just shy of 39 weeks, right?). When I went to bed that night, I had some lower back pain but I didn't think anything about it since I've had almost non-stop lower back and hip
pain for weeks now. I just chalked it up to walking and went to sleep.

On Monday (March 30th), I woke up around 3 a.m. needing to pee. My back pain was still there but again, didn't think anything about it -- until I went to wipe after peeing and I saw pink. It took me a second to figure out what I was seeing and I waited a little while, wiped again -- and saw mucous. I thought for sure at that point that I had lost part of my plug. I went to lay down and couldn't sleep because my back was bothering me (at this point, they still weren't fully wrapping around to the front, so I just thought I was uncomfortable). I got up to pee another 5 times before 6 a.m. I lost pieces of my plug almost every time I went to the bathroom. Oh, and all that pee I thought I was having? It was the beginning of me starting to leak fluid. I just didn't know it (more on that later). Then the back labor started to wrap to the front around 4 a.m. and I started to wonder whether I was having false labor (and when I started posting to CBB).

DH got up to go to work at 6 and I told him I thought I was starting to have contractions and that I lost my plug. He kinda panicked (in a happy "omg, baby will be here soon!" way and not in a "HOLY SHIT" way) and asked if he should call out of work. I was in complete denial that this might be happening that day, so I told him "Oh no, losing my plug doesn't mean I'm fully in labor. It's probably just false labor. I'm sure I have plenty of time. Go ahead and go to work and I'll keep you posted." He left at 6:30 and ten minutes later, I lost the rest of my plug and had my bloody show.

I swear to God, I was in the bathroom every 15 minutes after that, either with a BM or to pee. Every hard / long contraction I had triggered me to rush-waddle to the bathroom. Y'all, I have never pooped so much in such a short period of time in my freaking life, even when I had the stomach flu. That lasted until about 7:30 a.m. (maybe closer to 8 a.m.). Then the intervals tapered off and I was just peeing every 30 minutes or so -- at least, that's what I thought. I was having a lot of discharge. Head's up: "water breaking" can actually look like gobs of thinner pink jelly that keeps leaking out of you at the end of you peeing or standing up from the toilet. I just thought it was thin discharge. I always expected my water breaking to be...well, water.

At this point, I was having contractions that were anywhere from 2 and a half minutes apart (!!!) to 15 minutes apart. The majority were between 5 and 12 minutes apart, would start in my back like someone was grinding a sledgehammer into my lower back, then would wrap to the front like a hard period cramp. I kept putting off calling my doctor's office and ended up emailing instead. I figured that way, they'd get to it when they could and I could always call to follow up if I needed to. I was still convinced at this point that it was false labor, despite the fact that I couldn't sit, stand, and walking made the pains worse.

Apparently my email was alarming enough that the nurse called me within an hour of me sending the email out. The first thing she asked as if I had any contractions that were further apart than 15 minutes. When I told her no, she told me to tell my husband to come home (they knew that he worked 30 minutes from home in good traffic, and that we lived an hour away from the hospital, so she wanted to play it safe) and that if they became only 10 minutes apart, to head up to the hospital. She added "I think you'll be heading in around noon, from the sounds of it." She told me to increase my water intake in the meantime, warning me that it might slow down / regulate the contractions, but to still head in if they got closer together. Oh, but she didn't think I was leaking fluid from what I described, just having excess discharge.

I got off the phone and texted DH to come home. Then I promptly burst into tears because I was scared shitless. I was still denying that I was even in labor. I thought for sure DH would get home and the contractions would just stop and convinced myself that that would happen. While DH headed home, I started chugging water, which did put my contractions further apart (closer to 15 minutes), which helped my denial even more.

DH got home around 10:30-ish. I was actually calm when he walked in and burst into tears again a little while later. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him I felt like an idiot for making him come home when it was clearly false labor. He laughed it off and said "You're a first time mom. If it is false labor, how would you have known? Really, it's fine. My work will understand. You don't need to worry about any of that. Just to be safe though, I'm going to go put the car seat in the car. Can't hurt, right?"

Ten minutes later, the contractions started coming closer together. They got to about 8 minutes apart right around noon before DH started urging me to tell him what to pack in the hospital bag (yup, still hadn't done that -- it was on my "to do" list for last week). What we packed:
  • 2 changes of clothes for DH (2 shirts, extra pair of jeans, 2 pairs of socks and underwear).
  • My maternity maxi dress as my going home outfit (I'm practical -- I figured if I had a c-section, I wouldn't want anything pressing against my stomach, so I chose to go with a maxi to be on the safe side).
  • Extra pair of underwear for me.
  • 4 outfits for Luke (I didn't know how big he was going to be or how inept we'd be at dressing him, so we packed a newborn onesie outfit, a newborn sleeper, and a 0 - 3 month onesie and sleeper).
  • Warm blanket for the car seat and a thinner blanket for throwing over the car seat in case we needed a sun shade or something.
  • A small cosmetics bag filled with a few toiletries like my brush, our deoderants, our toothpaste and toothbrushes, q-tips, etc. I forgot to grab our little bag of shampoo and soap because at the time, I was thinking neither of us would want to shower at the hospital anyway -- and I was still thinking we'd get sent home.
  • The boppy.
  • A few burp cloths.
  • A pillow for DH to sleep on.
  • A quilt my mom made me for DH to use while we were at the hospital (we lent the same pillow and quilt to our friend's when they had their baby and the husband said it was so much better than trying to sleep with the stuff the hospital provided).
  • Phone chargers.
  • DH also grabbed the laptop and camcorder, and we forgot my DSLR camera, which bummed me out later.
I think that was everything. All of it fit into a carry-on suitcase, except for the boppy, the extra pillow, and the quilt, which I highly recommend because then your SO can just roll the suitcase and stack stuff on top of the handle part, which makes carrying things easier.

At 12:30, DH convinced me it was time to go to the hospital. I could barely shuffle-walk and I kept grabbing the wall / the futon edge / the table if I got near it and would get it in a death grip until the contraction passed. I was barely talking through the contractions, though I could talk in between them. They were still pretty sporadic, but I gave in. He loaded up the car and off we went.

I had to stop to pee halfway to the hospital, which was amusing for me. I remember people at the gas station giving me sideways looks as I walked back to the car, because I was clearly in pain :p

We got to the hospital around 1 something (I was in a lot of pain at that point, so I kept losing track of time. I had already sent in my registration paperwork at the beginning of the month, so going through registration took all of 5 - 10 minutes. DH parked the car while they got my info. The hospital wheelchair SUCKED, by the way. Hard as a rock and hurt like hell to sit on. ANyway, they sent us up to Labor and Delivery and when we got there...We had to sit outside in the hallway and wait because they were out of rooms. The hilarious thing was that at the hospital tour, I was the only person that asked "What happens if you run out of rooms?" It's a small hospital and a feasible question to ask, I thought. I was kinda "pooh-pooh'd" and told that that almost never happens. When the shift manager told us they were trying to figure something out and to give them a little bit, DH looked at me and said "Of course, the one thing I made fun of you for asking is the one thing that ends up happening to us..." to which I said "Never doubt my sixth sense."

I think we waited around 30 minutes before she came back and said they fixed up a "cubby hole" for me. I shit you not, it was a corner of L&D right where people go to do c-sections and the doctor's scrub up and change in a back hallway. It had a curtain for privacy, but at that point, I couldn't give less of a shit. They had me strip down in the doctor's dressing room and put the hospital gown on while the nurse stood guard to make sure no one came in. I was so distracted by the contractions that I couldn't figure out how to put the gown on (they had button clasps at the shoulders so you could drop one side or the other down and I just couldn't figure out how to put one button to the other, that's how distracted I was). It didn't help that I kept feeling the need to pee and every time I would stand up or move, more pink "jelly" would come out, which frustrated me even more (I kept getting nervous about thinking of walking through the hospital halls with no underwear and leaking all over the place and someone would have to clean up after me -- of all the things to freak out about). Eventually, I asked the nurse to help me and we got me situated back on the bed while they strapped a fetal heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor on me. The latter fascinated DH because it gave him something to look at and know I was having a contraction. He kept asking me to tell him if I needed him to press on my back (counter-pressure) or if I needed to squeeze his hand but a contraction would start up and I wouldn't know if it was going to be a real one or just taper off, so I'd forget to say something and when it really hit, I couldn't talk through it to tell him. So he LOVED that monitor. So much so that he started gleefully telling me every time a contraction was about to happen, which after the third time, caused me to tell him "If you tell me one more time when a contraction is coming, I'm going to kick you in the nuts since that's the only thing I can reach." He turned the monitor away after that. :p At around 2 p.m., I was at 3 cm and 90% effaced, and I still thought I'd be sent home.
 
(continued, part 1)

About 3 p.m., I discovered Dr. Dumb-Dumb was on call and gritting my teeth through a contraction, I flat out told the nurse I didn't want her anywhere near me and I didn't want her delivering my baby and to call MY doctor NOW. DH backed me up and the nurse shuffled off and called my doctor. I still hadn't officially been admitted yet. My doctor ended up coming in at 4 p.m. and told me she would be delivering my baby, which made me so relieved. She said she was going to check me and when she did, did I want her to break my water to speed things along or see how far I was first? I told her to tell me how far I was first, then I'd decide. She checked me and said I was 4 cm and 95% effaced (? I can't remember the effacement at this point), but that my water had already broken at some point. That's when I realized that all that pink "jelly" fluid was amniotic fluid and I'd been leaking since probably around 8 a.m. that morning. She said that they were admitting me and were trying to get me into a room. Cue panic on my part. The contractions were starting to stack at that point and I wasn't getting a break in between a lot of them. I started crying and couldn't stop. I couldn't even fully cry because the pressure from crying made me hurt even worse. Later on, DH told me he felt physically sick watching me in so much pain. I also faintly remember him asking my doctor what she thought would be time of delivery, and I remember her saying "Probably in about 6 hours if she keeps going the way she is."

Around 4:30, I guess I hit transition, because I kept repeating in between sobs and contractions "I can't do this. I just...I can't do this." DH asked me if I wanted him to get the nurse and tell her I wanted the epidural. I fought against it for another 30 minutes and finally caved, which made me cry even harder because I felt like I'd failed somehow. Later on, I realized how stupid that idea was. I was so gung ho about "go with the flow" and "do what you need to do" with everyone else, but when it came to myself, I felt like a complete failure for taking the meds.

They finally got a mother-baby room to open up so that I'd have somewhere temporarily until a L&D room opened and I had to walk (you should have seen my face when they told me that) from the "cubby hole" to it. I had to go down one long hallway, turn left, then go down another hallway. It was like trying to do a marathon with your legs cobbled together. That short distance took me almost 20 minutes to walk, and I was clinging to DH's arm the whole time with one arm and the lower part of my belly with the other, eyes closed. I felt like an idiot, which made it worse (I hate making scenes so knowing everyone was looking at me made it so much worse).

I faintly remember hearing the anesthesiologist arguing with my nurse and getting more nervous thinking he sounded pissed off and mean and that he'd probably hurt me. The experience was the exact opposite. The guy obviously knew what he was doing because the whole time, he was talking in soothing, calming tones and was very patient. Anyway, I got in the room and they got me situated for the epidural and the nurse showed me how to sit (chin tucked down, shoulders relaxed and down, back arched), which is insanely hard to do through a contraction. My hands were shaking so badly and I couldn't get them to stop. I've always been scared of needles and the thought of a big one being used on my spine was making my whole body shake but my hands were the worst. The nurse told DH what to do, but I guess he started looking white in the face after a minute because the next thing I knew, he wasn't there and the nurse was in his place.

Getting the epidural was a strange feeling. The anesthetic they do first hurt like hell at the first prick and I jumped because it felt like a bubble opened up to the right of my spine. The same thing when they applied the actual epidural, and again when they gave me some medication (I don't know what it was, I just faintly remember him saying that). My right leg went completely numb at first, then went to pins and needles. They had me lay back and I remember getting a contraction just as I was doing it, but it was...muffled. I was surprised at how quick it kicked in (I always thought you had to lay still for 45 minutes before it would kick in). I faintly remember DH disappearing into the bathroom and coming back a few minutes later. He told me later that he almost passed out and had to go splash cold water on his face. I'm normally a pretty tough person, so I guess seeing me shaking so badly shook him up a bit, on top of everything else that was going on.

We were both stunned when he looked at the contraction monitor and he asked me if I could "feel that." "Feel what?" I said. "That really big contraction." Uh, no, couldn't feel a thing. Blissful, blissful relief. I kept almost falling asleep after that, but I was too much on edge to sleep. They ended up giving me a foley catheter (couldn't feel that either!) a little while later and we just kinda hung out for a while until a L&D room opened up around 6 or so. So they moved us over to that room and I dozed for a little bit. Our friends asked if they could come by and I said yes, since I was coherent. I made DH go get something to eat too, because he hadn't eaten in 12 hours and I didn't want him to get stuck with nothing later on.

I got checked around 7 p.m. and I was still at 4 cm. The epidural had temporarily stalled out labor because I was so relaxed, which frustrated me a little. Baby was doing great though. Our friends came in and waited with us (including my friend the nurse, even though she wasn't on shift. That ended up being awesome, because she knew everything that was supposed to happen, so she'd go snag one of her coworkers if something wasn't getting done when it needed to be). At 10 p.m., I was at 6 cm and we waited for things to change. I was getting a little nervous again at that point, because I knew I was on a timer since my water had technically broken earlier that morning and I knew after 24 hours, risk of infection and fever set in.

At around 4 a.m., I had hit 8 cm but there was still a lip of cervix hanging out that refused to go away. I did a tiny cheer. They said they'd check me again around 6 and see if I was fully there and then we could do practice pushes. My friend the nurse kept asking me if I could feel pressure. At first, I said no, because I didn't think I was. A little while later, I realized I was -- Pro-tip: when you have an epi, "pressure" can translate to "hey, my butt feels more numb than a second ago...oh wait, now it's fine." :p At 6, I was 10 cm and they said we could start with practice pushes. Surprisingly, I was good at it, despite not being able to feel anything. The nurses were surprised and said I was doing really good. ALso surprising: my husband decided to look at his head clearing my undercarriage when he said he wouldn't do it :p One minute I was pushing with my eyes closed, and the next I hear his voice from between my legs asking "Is that his head right there?" :p

Unfortunately, baby boy kept getting caught on that damn lip of cervix (which still hadn't gone away), so I'd get his head partially out, then he'd slip back in. Eventually, I did such a good job of pushing that I almost had him at 7 a.m. without the doctor there LOL Cue frantic nurses telling me to STOP PUSHING. My friend said that my doctor was probably dropping her kids off at school but was on her way to work. Sure enough, my doctor rolled in about 7:20 in a running tank and shorts because she had just dropped her kids off and had started her run and had to run a mile back to her house when she got the call.

Side note: at around 7 a.m., I started feeling contractions again. I thought it was just because his head was almost out and it was causing a lot of pressure. Later on, we discovered that the IV had gotten stuck between the bed rail and was cut off, so I actually wasn't getting anything from the epidural. Trying not to push when you are having back labor is the pits, people.

Anyway, she got her scrubs on and cheerfully walked over and told me to give her a push. In three pushes, he was out. The last one cleared his head and my doctor stood back with a grin and her arms crossed. I remember going "Don't I need to push again?!" and she said "Nope. He's coming out on his own right now." I was stunned. I always thought you had to keep pushing until the baby was fully out. So it was kinda neat to be able to just hang out while he worked his way out. He started crying immediately and my doctor asked DH if he wanted to cut the cord. He had told me he didn't think he would, but he surprised me again when he said he wanted to do it.

Luke scored a 9 on the initial APGAR test and another 9 at the next one. The pediatric nurse pissed me off because she was insisting his blood sugar was low because he was shaking and wanted to order testing done but I tried to insist that they just give him to me for skin to skin because he was probably just cold -- she wouldn't listen. After about 10 minutes under the warmer, he stopped shaking and she conceded that he "probably didn't need the tests." Bitch.

I was really surprised at how fast the placenta came out too. I think it was only a few minutes (maybe 5?) later. I always thought it would take a really long time and you'd have to actually push it out. I didn't even notice that it came out. My doctor was the one who told me that I had "had it." I apparently had a first degree tear ("Literally a paper cut" according to my doctor and my nurse friend) and I thought I got away with no hemorrhoids, but the nurse the next day told me I had one. Boo hiss.
 
(continued, part 2 -- this is the last of it)

Everyone kept telling me how beautiful he was. To be completely honest, all I could see at first was that he had a giant cone head :p Now I can see that he's a cute baby (but of course, I'm biased). Over the next couple of days, nurses kept sneaking in to look at him because they thought he was so cute. He was also apparently the only boy baby that was born in the beginning of that week (everyone else had girls -- go figure!) so he was kind of a little celebrity in the mother-baby ward.

He was a little jaundiced and dehydrated when we went home last Thursday, and I thought he was latching on -- he wasn't. By the way guys, if you're not sure, SPEAK UP. Don't wait like I did because we got home, I thought he had a great feed at 6 p.m., and then all hell broke loose. Starting at 9 p.m., he would wake up hungry, scream, refuse to latch, and scream some more until he fell into an exhausted sleep. Then he'd wake up again 15 minutes later and repeat the whole process. It didn't help that he hadn't pooped since the night he was born (not even meconium. Literally, nothing) and had barely had any wet diapers. I became pretty frantic around 2 a.m. because I thought he was going to die because he wasn't eating.

At that point, I told my husband to go make a bottle of formula to give him. It ended up being the right decision. He chugged that bottle and fell into an exhausted sleep for 3 hours. We repeated it again at 6 a.m. and again at 8:30 a.m. before going to the pediatrician appointment. He had dropped from 7 lbs. 6 oz. to 6 lbs. 9 oz. in only 2 days and that was on a full belly. It concerned the pediatrician enough that she wanted us to come back in Monday for a weight check. She agreed that we had made the right choice on the formula and told us to continue trying to give him boob first, then supplement with a bottle afterwards until he either pooped or my milk came in and he was latching. I guess the pediatrician saw something in my face because she started reassuring me that just because we were having to supplement now didn't mean it was a permanent thing and giving boob or formula didn't make me a bad mom either way, as long as he was getting what he needed. I actually started crying in the pediatrician's office, partially because I wanted him to just latch so we wouldn't have to give him formula and partially because it was a relief to know we'd made the right decision.

We continued to supplement the rest of the day and at 6 p.m., he pooped. I didn't think I'd ever be so damn excited over a full, poopy diaper, but y'all, I was literally cheering. After talking to the LC over the phone earlier in the day (who agreed we had made the right decision and that the pediatrician was right), I started pumping that night to see if it would help bring my milk in faster and maybe get Luke to latch. I got enough pumped that we stopped the formula and started just giving him a bottle of pumped colostrum / breast milk. It seemed to work great and when we went to the weight check on Monday, he had gained back a whopping 10 ounces in 2 days (he was 7 lbs. 3 oz.). So they said to just keep doing what we were doing.

He still won't really latch (he uses my boob as a pacifier if anything). I did get him to latch a bit with a shield this morning, so I had a little victory dance over that, but after talking to a friend of mine who had the same problem with her first born, I figure it's going to just take some time. But pumping and feeding him with a bottle is working and he's gaining weight and isn't dehydrated, so that's the most important thing.

Oh, one last thing: I lost a whopping 10 lbs. after birth. Yeah. Talk about disappointing on that front :p I did drop another 3 over the weekend, so we'll see how it goes. I was so hoping I'd be one of those unicorn women that dropped 20 pounds off the bat and would keep dropping weight as time passed. Blech. Oh well, it took 9 months to put it on, it'll probably take just as long to take it off, I guess.

Tips:
  • If you have a boppy, use it to sit on on your way to the hospital. REALLY cushions the blows if there are potholes and the like. I didn't think about doing that until the ride home from the hospital and I've been sitting on it every time I have to get in the car since. I haven't really used it for nursing because I have to do the football hold on Luke whenever I attempt to get him to latch and it's not really comfortable for that.
  • No matter what happens, you are the parent. Go with your gut, not with your guilt. If you need to use formula but weren't planning to, it's ok. Need the meds when you wanted to go all natural? It's ok. Ultimately, it's whatever is best for you and baby. It took me a while to come to terms with both decisions I made, but once I did, I felt so much better knowing I made the choice that was the best for Luke and for me.
  • Have some bottles handy. You may not need them for formula, but you might need them for pumping like I did. I was very glad I had a small stack of bottles, nipples, etc. that friends gave us. I was also really glad I ordered the electric pump through our insurance. I almost didn't because a friend of mine was using a manual and had convinced me that you get more milk with a manual. I couldn't pump worth a shit with the manual pump.
  • Padsicles are the shit. Seriously. Make yourself some with just witch hazel and some with both that and aloe. The one's with the aloe are going to feel like you stuck a popsicle in your underpants and the witch hazel ones are just going to feel soothing. You'll need both. I'm still ridiculously sore and using them a week later. Once you have one on, go sit down. If you're walking about, it won't soothe you as much. Once they warm up, feel free to move about the cabin. :p
  • On that note, get some witch hazel wipes. If you have a hemorrhoid, tuck that wipe in between your butt cheeks every time you go to the bathroom and pull your underwear up. Supposedly, it makes it go down faster and helps with any pain.
  • TAKE THE STOOL SOFTENERS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. That first poop scared the absolute hell out of me because it took two days to happen (I guess because my body had performed an exorcism the day I went into labor). Afterwards, it wasn't so bad, but you literally freak out and think you're birthing another child. Keep taking them after you go home.
  • We had a great support system of friends and family, but it was overwhelming to have so many people coming and going. I got absolutely no sleep in the hospital because I was either trying to feed baby or modestly cover up when people came by. Every time I dozed off, someone would come in to check my vitals or drop by to say hello. I was too polite to tell everyone to leave. Don't be like me. Get the rest when you can and if people won't leave, just sleep while they're there and say fuck it :p
  • The halo sleep sack is awesome. So are the Aden+Anais swaddle blankets. I just suck at swaddling :p But they're great for using as covers, car seat covers, emergency blanket because baby threw up on his actual blanket, etc.
  • If you're in an area where it's already getting warm, you're probably not going to need footie pajamas (especially if you're planning to swaddle). It's been 80 the last two days and we had to stop putting him in footies because he was sweating through the PJ, the swaddle blanket, and through the mattress. So yeah, head's up on that.
  • A lot of people are going to have all sorts of opinions about what you should or should not be doing. When Luke couldn't latch and wasn't pooping, my Mom and MIL had all sorts of opinions on what I was doing wrong, ranging from "just give him a bottle with some water for the constipation!" to "you're holding him wrong, do this!" to "make sure to force him awake every 2 hours to feed him and it'll be fine!" -- that had to be the stupidest piece of advice I got. Don't force your baby awake if you don't have to. All that accomplished was frustrating Luke and screwing up his feeding schedule even worse. I tried it for one day and regretted every minute of it. So like I said, go with your gut. If something doesn't sound right or if you know it's not going to work for you, don't force yourself into thinking you should try it.
I'll probably think of more as we go along, but that's just off the top of my head.
 
@jerzy12 That was beautiful! He's beautiful! You're a mommy! :')

I can't believe they put you in a "cubby hole"! I will remember not to bet against you and your intuition.

And the part that made me laugh the hardest was you talking about all the pre-labor poo as an exorcism. Seriously!

Don't feel bad about labor denial. I was the same way the first time and very much the opposite the second time. Maybe if/when I have another I'll finally figure it out.

It sounds like you are doing well even if the path you were given wasn't the easiest. I always envy those women who have no issues BFing. The struggle is real!

I'm a bit surprised they sent you home when your kiddo hadn't pooped yet. That was a discharge requirement at my hospital (so fully support I blaming them for your son's dehydration!)
 
@sonchoy
That was beautiful! He's beautiful! You're a mommy! :')
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Awww, thanks crayon :D

I can't believe they put you in a "cubby hole"! I will remember not to bet against you and your intuition.
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Dude, I couldn't believe it when the manager said they were full up. The look on my husband's face was priceless too. I wish I could have recorded our conversation lol

And the part that made me laugh the hardest was you talking about all the pre-labor poo as an exorcism. Seriously!
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That's exactly what it felt like. It was like my body decided it had to purge everything I'd eaten in the last week. :X

Don't feel bad about labor denial. I was the same way the first time and very much the opposite the second time. Maybe if/when I have another I'll finally figure it out.
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Yeah hopefully the next go around, I'll be in a better state of mind :p I just kept thinking that he couldn't come yet because we still had so much to do around the house.

It sounds like you are doing well even if the path you were given wasn't the easiest. I always envy those women who have no issues BFing. The struggle is real!
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No kidding. I remember my MIL telling me that she used to plop both boys on a side lay and fall back asleep. She actually admitted to me yesterday that she would give the boys formula on the weekends so her husband could watch / feed the boys so she could sleep and she had felt guilty about that. I also found out while in labor that my mom had an epidural with me. Both things that I was kinda guilted for by them. :p

I'm a bit surprised they sent you home when your kiddo hadn't pooped yet. That was a discharge requirement at my hospital (so fully support I blaming them for your son's dehydration!)
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He had a small poop the night he was born but it wasn't a lot, and I remember my doctor saying a bit of meconium was present when he was born, so I guess they counted that as two poops. Unfortunately, it wasn't legit, but it wasn't their fault either.
 
@jerzy12 Muse! You're a mama! This is a fantastic birth story - I read every word. :p Can't wait to see more updates on FB and soon on CBTB2. Congratulations, my dear!
 
@hisgirl I dunno if it helped you at all to read that, but hopefully it did :) Essentially, just keep in mind that everything works out in the end, whether it goes the way you intended it or not :p
 
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